Cabbage Soup and Cold Weather
by dust on the wind
Summary: On the long train journey to the Russian Front, facing the prospect of freezing conditions and certain death, what's there to talk about? Written for the Short Story Challenge


_I do not own any of the characters from the series Hogan's Heroes. _

_An expansion of a very short scene in "The Klink Commandos" (Season 5), written for the Short Story Challenge. A brief exchange of dialogue is transcribed from that episode._

_The first sentence is from **The Wish** by Ray Bradbury._

* * *

><p>A whisper of snow touched the cold window. Not that it could be heard, over the clatter of the wheels on the railroad track, and the distant pounding of the engine; nor even seen in the darkness, except for the brief instant when it came to rest against the glass. But that momentary, ephemeral flicker was enough to bring back memories of happier times. Memories of childhood, when a long night journey was an adventure; memories of those days when a young, dashing airman might indulge in a little romance, if he was lucky enough to find himself sharing a compartment with a pretty girl.<p>

Food for melancholy, under the circumstances; probably the only decent food he would get, during the very few days left to him. This journey was more of an adventure than he cared for, and as for romance - well, one look at the passenger sitting opposite was enough to kill the idea stone dead.

To think it had come to this. A distinguished family line, generations of military men who had served the Fatherland with honour and distinction, now travelling towards a dead end. A very cold, very bleak dead end. By fast train.

Wilhelm Klink could have wept at the injustice of it, but for the loss of dignity; and dignity was all he had left.

"Cabbage soup."

His travelling companion had been mercifully silent for some time; but apparently there was a limit to how long he could go without speaking. Klink sighed, wondering what he'd done to deserve such an insult, on top of everything else. Five prisoners from Stalag 13 had been pressed into service for this suicide mission, but four of them, including Colonel Hogan, had made themselves scarce, leaving only one man to keep Colonel Klink company on this last journey. Of all of them, the last one he would have chosen, too. It was an affront to Klink's pride. After all, he was still in charge of these men, and he deserved better treatment than this.

Of course, Sergeant Carter was good-natured enough, but as Hogan himself had said, only a few hours earlier, _not too bright_. Klink had nothing in common with the man, which made conversation extremely uncomfortable for both of them. So they sat mostly in silence, Klink reviewing in his mind the sequence of events which had landed him in this predicament, while Carter leaned forward on his rifle, occasionally commenting about how cold it was getting, or speculating on what they'd get to eat, once they reached their destination.

He seemed pretty cheerful about it, too. Anyone would think he didn't know they were doomed.

Still, things could be worse. The Russian woman was somewhere on this train. Fate might have appointed her, instead of the relatively innocuous Carter, as Klink's companion on this journey to oblivion. At least he was spared that.

She was the cause of all this, he was certain of it. Oh, sure, that lunatic General Reifschneider had been the one to send him on this crazy suicide mission, but the whole miserable process had begun with Marya's arrival at Stalag 13.

"That was what the Russian flyers at the transit camp used to eat, all the time," Carter went on. "There was a whole bunch of them, and they cooked it up right there in the barracks. And you know something, Kommandant? Didn't matter where you were in camp, you could smell that cabbage soup. Even upwind." He snickered at the memory. "It must have been tough on the goons - sorry, I mean the guards. I mean, I was only there for a couple of days, but they were stuck there. Boy, were some of them ever grouchy. I hope they feed us better than that, where we're going."

"As if it matters, when we're going to die anyway," muttered Klink, gazing morosely at the darkness outside.

"Well, I guess it matters. Because you can't fight a war on cabbage soup. I don't care what anyone says. Of course, the Russians seem to manage okay," remarked Carter, suddenly thoughtful. "In fact, they do pretty good. Maybe there's something in it, after all."

Klink turned a weary eye on him. "Maybe there is, if you're a barbarian from the wastelands of Siberia. It doesn't appeal to me. Now can we please not talk about it?"

"Sure, Kommandant," said Carter.

For a couple of minutes neither of them spoke. Klink continuted to stare out of the window. Without thinking, he started to squint, trying to trace out pictures in the layer of frost accumulated on the lower edge of the glass, just as he had on the long journey to visit his grandparents, forty years ago. But either he'd lost the knack since then, or the frost these days wasn't what it used to be. All he could see was a blurred mass of white. It seemed an omen of what lay ahead; a miserable, lonely demise, surrounded by snow.

"They don't just eat soup, you know." Carter had started up again. "I heard they eat a lot of pickled fish, as well. Gee, I bet Newkirk won't like that. He wouldn't even touch that fish stew of LeBeau's. I forget what it was called - boiler base, something like that."

"_Bouillabaisse_," mumbled Klink. He was growing drowsy; he'd had no sleep the night before, hounded as he'd been by the amorous Marya.

Carter took a moment to examine the word. "No, that doesn't sound right. You know, that's what I don't get about foreigners. Why can't they use normal words for stuff?" Klink glared at him, but he seemed oblivious to his lapse in tact, and went on, "I mean, you ask LeBeau any time what's for dinner, he'll spout off some great big long French name, you get all excited 'cause it sounds like it's something real fancy, and turns out it's just pork and beans. I don't think it's fair."

"Don't talk to me about what's not fair," grumbled Klink. "What's not fair is that I should be on a train, heading for the Russian Front, instead of back at Stalag 13, waiting for Schultz to bring me a glass of warm milk before bed."

"Maybe they'll have warm milk in Russia," offered Carter.

"Uh-huh. And maybe Stalin will bring it himself, and read me a bedtime story."

"The Three Bears. That'd be a good one," murmured Carter, and sniggered to himself.

Klink gazed at him silently. Every so often he found himself wondering if Carter was really as foolish as he sometimes appeared. But as always, one look at that amiable, open countenance was enough to set his mind at rest. This man had no secrets.

"Of course, he'd be speaking Russian," Carter added, following his own train of thought. "So I guess you wouldn't get much out of it."

Any impulse Klink might have had towards responding was interrupted, as with a shriek of metal on metal, and a rapid deceleration which almost landed the Kommandant on the floor of the compartment, the train came to an standstill.

"Why have we stopped?" asked the Kommandant.

He was talking more to himself than to Carter, who was probably as much in the dark as Klink was himself. Unreasonably, because he knew there was no hope, he still felt the beginnings of a faint glimmer. After all, Hogan was aboard, and Hogan had a knack of finding a way out of the most desperate situations.

"Gee, I don't know," replied Carter vaguely. He tilted his head forward and to one side, peering up at the Kommandant, an oddly intent look in his eyes; and Klink experienced a sudden dislocating sense of familiarity. He'd seen just such an expression on another face within the last twenty-four hours. For a few seconds his subconscious grappled with a suspicion almost beyond belief, tracing inexplicable points of resemblance between this overgrown puppy of an American, and the maniacal Reifschneider who had stormed through Stalag 13 a few hours earlier.

Then the train gave a series of sharp, heavy judderings, and the thought was shaken away.

"Probably a new crew," said Carter, with a nervous giggle.

The scowl on Klink's face deepened. "On my last trip, must I be bounced around like a beanbag?"

"Well, I guess they got it going now...I hope."

"Personally, I'm in no hurry." Klink looked out of the window. There was still nothing to be seen, only the continuous flicker of snowflakes coming to rest on the glass. "Does it seem to you like..." He hesitated briefly, the idea was so preposterous, then went on: "...like the train is going backwards?

Carter's brow furrowed in perplexity. He opened his mouth as if to answer, and then stopped, pondering the question. "It just seems that way because your back's to the engine," he suggested at last.

"But..." Klink tried to work it out, staring out of the window again, looking for clues. "I thought the engine was at that end," he said at last, with a nod in the direction he was facing.

"Well, golly, Kommandant, it can't be. Otherwise you wouldn't be going backwards," replied Carter.

Somehow his logic made sense, although it might only have done so because Klink was getting too sleepy to follow it through. He gave up, and hunched his shoulders. "I never sit with my back to the engine," he grumbled petulantly. "It gives me a headache."

"Gee, that's tough," said Carter, instantly sympathetic. "It never bothers me, but my kid brother used to get sick all the time when we were travelling. I mean, real sick. Real proper get-out-of-the-way-'cause-here-it-comes sick. You didn't want to be sitting opposite him on a train, boy. That stuff can really fly."

He gave a reminiscent chuckle, then sobered abruptly as he caught the Kommandant's eye. "Maybe we ought to change seats," he added uneasily. "You don't look so good, sir."

In fact, Klink didn't feel so good, but he was fairly certain his orientation in relation to the direction of travel was less of a factor than the future his imagination was laying out before him: cabbage soup, freezing conditions, certain death. He wasn't sure which prospect appalled him the most.

"Oh, all right," he growled. "But I doubt it'll make much difference."

Once he was settled in his new seat, however, he had to concede it was more comfortable than the other, and unconsciously he started to relax, his head nodding to the side. His eyes drifted once again to the frost outside the glass, detecting faint lines veining the whiteness; lines which, in his half-waking state, seemed to hold some kind of meaning.

"Why don't you try to get some sleep? We got a long way to go yet. You don't want to show up at the Russian Front all tuckered out, do you?"

It seemed odd, somehow, for General Reifschneider to speak so kindly. Klink raised his head, blinking as he focused. No, not General Reifschneider, of course. Just Carter, gazing back at him, without malice, without guile.

"You go ahead, get some shut-eye," he added. "And things'll look better in the morning. You'll see. You might even find out you like cabbage soup."

"I very much doubt it." Klink suppressed a yawn, and huddled down in his seat. His eyelids were so heavy he could hardly keep them open, as he turned back to the window. The pattern in the frost was clearer now, but if there really was a message there, it had changed; or perhaps he was dreaming, and in that dream seeing what he wanted to see. The bright tracery seemed to fall into familiar lines, drawing a landscape he knew well; the barracks buildings, the guard towers, the barbed-wire fence, all perfectly clear to his mind's eye.

"I think he's already asleep." Was it Carter who spoke, or General Reifschneider? Either, or both of them, it didn't seem to matter. Klink let it pass him by, and sank into the sweet unconsciousness of slumber.

Outside the flicker of snowflakes continued, but he was no longer watching; and the train rumbled on towards morning.


End file.
